Fic: The Indefinite Article 2/2, S/B, NC-17
"What did you say to her?"
Connie was standing at the bedroom doorway, a defiant set to her shoulders. Bill was right behind her, looking gutted. Spike returned his gaze to the bedroom ceiling. He'd been lying flat on his back for hours now. Listening to the house come awake. Wondering if it wouldn't be easier, after all, to just get up, walk across the room, and open the blackout curtains. "That's between me and your Mum."
"She was crying last night. We heard her." Connie's eyes were as wintery a blue as ever his own had been. "You know what? It was better when you were gone. I wish you'd never come home."
She broke and ran, sandaled feet pattering down the hallway. Bill lingered a moment longer, the betrayal in his eyes all too easy to decipher. At last he said, "I don't think I need a soul after all," and left.
Watching them go, Spike was vaguely aware of a dull, spreading ache in his chest, beneath the ever-present acid burn of guilt: not his soul outraged, this time, but his heart. He'd just begun, in the last few months, to make real progress in repairing the damage he'd done by walking out on them two summers ago. Which was why the business with Alex had terrified him so; the thought of wrecking forever what he'd only just got back was intolerable. Getting a soul was the only way to ensure he'd never hurt his family again. Or so he'd thought.
He'd made a horrible mistake.
Nothing new there, of course. His existence, he sometimes thought, was just a series of horrible mistakes, one after the other, punctuated by occasional interludes used to plan his next horrible mistake in exacting detail. And this one he couldn't have foreseen. How could he have possibly known, when soulless, just how wrong he'd been about so many things?
He couldn't look Buffy in the eye when she marched up the stairs a few minutes later, regal as anyone could have managed dressed in pajamas with sock monkeys printed all over them. She waved aside his stuttered attempt at apology, chin high and mouth set in an imperious line that would have done the first Elizabeth proud. "You've said enough," she said. "It's time for me to talk."
Spike nodded; he didn't trust himself to anything else. Buffy settled herself cross-legged at the foot of the bed. "You don't really think you're the first person to bring up the fact that you're kind of evil, do you?" she said. "Were kind of evil. Now you're just an asshole. Shut up, I'm still talking." She tucked a stray wisp of honey-gold hair behind her ear. "I don't love you because you were evil. I love you because you tried so hard not to be. I love your bravery, and your devotion, and your smartass mouth, and your stupid exploded-poodle hair, and the way your eyes crinkle up when you laugh, and the way you sing Ramones songs in the shower, - and - " She broke off, fists clenched in her lap. "I know you did terrible things. I saw you do some of them, remember? I stopped you from doing some of them. And I know you didn't feel sorry about them the way someone with a soul would." She looked up. "But you didn't have a soul. And you did the best you could with what you did have. And maybe our relationship wasn't perfect and it wasn't normal, but it was ours, and it worked." Deep breath. "And I don't know if this is working anymore."
Those words would have killed him, once. Still hurt. "Buffy - "
She held up a hand. "Let me finish. I know this has been a big adjustment for you. I know it took Angel years, decades, a century - I don't have that much time. I'm forty years old, and I've been living on borrowed time since I was fifteen. I can give you time. I can. But I can't give you centuries. Or even decades. They need their father. I need my husband." She reached out and laid a hand on his chest, in a gesture that should have been balm. "I know he's still in there. But I need to know whether or not I'm going to get him back some day."
You've already got him, his heart wanted to say. Wanted to prostrate himself before her, beg forgiveness, spend the rest of his life making amends, hold her and love her and comfort her ever after. But his heart wasn't in sole command any longer. "He's in there, all right," Spike said bitterly. "I'm still a demon. Still want all the things I wanted before. Just... now I know how wrong they are. And there's nothing left, nothing I can hold on to." He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. "Things I thought were right and good are - for Christ's sake, you're the Slayer, and you're carrying soulless demonspawn in your belly, and we make our living chopping up demons and selling their bits on the next step above the black market. You look the other way while Bite Club mates up suckers with bloodsuckers downtown - "
"Yes, I've compromised! Kinda remember doing it! So have you!" Buffy drew her knees up to her chin, her moss-agate eyes eloquent with unshed tears - after last night, she wouldn't cry in front of him, at any rate. "Spike, is there any chance... any chance there's something wrong with your soul?"
Where the hell had that come from? Spike gave a humorless bark of laughter. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Isn't that one of the things you love about me? Long as you're the only one with the functioning moral compass, you get the last word." He bared his teeth in a mirthless grin. "No chance, Slayer. Part of the deal: I fixed it with Melly to give me the soul of a good man."
"Which one, Cotton Mather?" She frowned, seizing on the last sentence. "Wait. You don't have your own soul?"
"Course not. Gave my proper one up to bring you back, didn't I? Long gone." He shrugged away her worried look. "It struck me, likely there's millions of souls floating 'round the aether, the vamps they used to belong to long gone to dust. I had Melly snag me one of those."
"Oh." Buffy appeared to be contemplating this. "That's... kind of creepy, actually." She pulled a weak smile from somewhere. "Just the sort of thing soulless you would come up with." Her face went serious. "Spike, you really freaked me out last night. I almost wish I could fuck it out of you."
"Do you have any sodding idea what you're saying?" Spike sat forward with a growl, feeling the stretch and creak of bone as his face changed. "Any fucking clue how close to the bloody line I walked, every single day? The worst of my fuckups was nothing to what I could have done. What I would have done, sooner or later. That business with Alex - I wasn't pushed past any limits, Buffy. Wasn't provoked, no more than I've been a hundred times before. After twenty fucking interminable years I just got tired of holding it in." He let his demon features fall away. "If the Circle K clerk'd been the one to piss me off, I'd've killed the berk, and likely five of his mates for good measure, and gone my merry way. We were just lucky it was our son."
Her mouth drew even tighter. "Funny definition of luck you have these days."
Spike leaned across the counterpane and caught her hands, earnest now. "For twenty years you've been telling me I can't understand, 'cause I haven't a soul. Well, I understand now. I understand why you sent Angel to hell to save the world. I understand why you risked everything to save that rat bastard Wells. You did it because it was the right thing to do. I understand that, for the first time in a hundred and forty years. Can you really ask me to give that up?"
She bowed her head, silent. "No. No, I can't." With a quick shake of her head, Buffy uncurled, hopped off the bed and headed for the wardrobe. She dressed with quick efficiency, tossing aside two pairs of jeans that didn't fit any longer with a wrinkle of her nose. Minimal makeup, hair in a twist. "Spike, will you be OK here by yourself for awhile? I've got lessons today." She pulled her skating bag from the closet and slung it over her shoulder.
"Kids off to school already?" he asked.
"Spike, it's Saturday." She sighed, shook her head. "I told Bill to keep Connie and Alex out of your way until you're... feeling better. I'll be back as soon as I can."
He waited until he heard the Jeep's engine start, and pull out of the driveway. He listened, picking out heartbeats: downstairs, Connie and Alex were squabbling over a video game, and down in the basement, Bill was having a go at the weights. Something he ought to get back to; he'd let himself go long enough, and there was work to do.
He rolled out of bed, ran a quick shower, forgoing his morning wank - hadn't been much call for one lately, anyway. Dressed, shaved, slicked his hair back. He wiped fog from the mirror, staring at his absent reflection. He was an old hand at making himself presentable without. He gave the blackout curtains a wistful look as he left the bathroom. But no. That was the coward's way out. Where the hell had he put his boots? He bent down to look under the bed, rummaging, and yanked his hand back with a curse as his fingers impacted something hard and sharp.
Buffy's ice skates.
Fuck.
He had less time than he'd thought. He wasn't sure he could nerve himself for what needed to be done. But he'd got himself a soul, and he understood now what it was to do the right thing. It was high time he started doing it.
****
Buffy glanced down at the magnetic business card she'd fished out of the half-dozen collecting dust on the refrigerator (Melissa Delacouer, Consulting Shaman, Eighth Level Initiate of the Kun Sun Dai - By Appointment Only) and up at the faded gilt lettering on the rippled glass window of the office door in front of her. It was a two-hour drive from Sunnydale to L.A., and she'd made it in an hour and a half. Melly had been on Bloody Vengeance's corporate Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice/Gurnenthar's Ascension/Kwanza/Eid list since the first year they'd started the business, but Buffy'd only met her once or twice before. She was usually more than willing to let Spike deal with the client end of things, only stepping in when the application of some Slayer muscle seemed in order.
The door opened before she could knock. "Slayer," Melly Delacour said, gazing down at Buffy from the advantage of eight inches. "Didn't expect to see you here. I thought sure I'd be getting another visit from Spike some time soon, but this is a surprise. Come on in and tell me all your troubles, sugar."
Buffy glanced around as she followed Melly in: crumbling tomes, check; spooky bottles, check; bones of dubious origin, check; all the standard trappings of a mage's office. Buffy took a seat in the offered chair. "Spike tells me you stuck him with somebody else's soul."
Melly raised an eyebrow. "Honey, he begged me to stick him with someone else's soul. Most interesting proposition I've gotten in a long, long, time, and your hubby ain't the only one who's older than he looks. Not many vampires get their souls back to begin with, and I never heard tell of a vampire that wanted one back before."
"Spike's always liked doing things the hard way." No sense in beating around the bush, here. "Something's wrong with him."
A second eyebrow joined the first. "Guilt, remorse, crippling self-loathing? Goes with the territory, honey."
Buffy dismissed both eyebrows with an impatient head-shake. "My first boyfriend pretty much wrote the book on crippling self-loathing. Believe me, got the memo. This is different. It's like he's gotten all..." She waved her hands helplessly. "Judgy and weird. That never happened to Willow, or Angel, or Wesley, when they got their souls back."
"Mmmm, yeah." Melly pursed her lips. "Your ordinary vampire, it's a demon spirit poured into a human body, held together by magic as deep and dark and bloody as it gets. You put a human soul back in the mix, it'll cleave to the body it sprang from, better'n any demon spirit could. That's why it can override the demon. Your Spike, though... the Mohra blood knit human body 'n demon soul together when it brought him to life. He's all of a piece now. Add a human soul to that mix, it's like cramming too many teeth into a jaw - one of 'em's gonna ache something fierce. Even the soul he was born with might not fit him any longer. He's a custom job, honey."
"I don't suppose you mentioned any of this to Spike?"
The shaman rolled her eyes. "I gave it a try. But you know better'n I do - how easy is it to change his mind when he's really set on something?"
"Point," Buffy admitted with a sigh. "I guess the real question is, will he get better? Can we, like, fit him with spiritual braces? Or is he going to stay like this?" The possibility that he might get worse wasn't one she really wanted to think about.
Melly chuckled, rocking back in her leather chair. "Who knows? No one's ever tried anything like this before, sugar. We'll just have to wait and see."
"Not my strong point." She couldn't believe she was asking this. "If he doesn't get better, is there any way to reverse it?"
The shaman's eyes were knowing. "I expected that question to come up. Expected it would be Spike askin' it, though." She rose to her feet and strolled over to the shelves of bottles, running her fingers across the dusty labels. "There's never a spell that can't be broken, never a curse that can't be lifted. I put a little something aside for him, just in case." Moving several bottles, she produced a slim dagger of bone, yellow with age and about a foot long. The hilt was bound in ancient, sweat-stained strips of leather, braided in an intricate pattern, and the narrow blade was serrated like a shark's tooth. The grooves were stained an ugly reddish-brown. She turned to face Buffy, blade held lightly in one hand. "This is a soul-eater. You use it like you'd expect - stab to the heart, soul gets sucked into the blade. The question is, are you willing to pay the price?"
"That depends," Buffy replied, "on the bill. I won't give you anything that isn't mine to give, and that includes first, second, third and fourth-born children, best friends, and neighborhood pets. Also, questions: If Spike's got two souls in him now, how do I know this will suck up the right one? What happens to the soul that gets sucked? And heart-stabbiness? In my experience, generally fatal."
Melly threw back her head and laughed. "I like you, Slayer. You're a hard sell." She twirled the dagger, caught it. "This won't kill him. The soul gets eaten - this isn't a nice business, honey. And if you or anyone else stabs him, it could take either one. Or both. For the soul-eater to take the soul I gave him, and only that soul, Spike'll have to do it himself."
Buffy bit her lip. Spike hadn't sounded any too willing to give up his hard-won soul this morning... and what if he was right? Was the deep unease she felt no more than discomfort with the idea that he could now call her on issues where she'd had the last word for years? What if she was over-reacting, and all he needed was more time for the soul to settle in? Angel had certainly needed more time, and by all accounts Wesley wasn't doing so well on that front, either. "What do you want for it?"
"Spike paid me in memories," said Melly. She grinned. "Spicy stuff, your first night together. I wouldn't mind having me a matched set."
****
The basement, Spike decided. There was only one exit, and they'd had blackout shutters installed over the windows back when Willow and Tara had been renting the place. It had taken him far too long to come to that decision: precious hours spent debating trifles with himself, when Buffy might return at any moment. Part of him, he knew, was hoping for just that. Right now he was his own worst enemy.
It was tempting to assign all the weak and selfish impulses within him to the influence of his demon aspect, but the truth was, the flaw was bred as deep in the man as the monster. In one it might take the form of a womanish excess of feeling, and in the other a savage possessiveness, but both emotions worked to hinder him in what he must do. If he'd only held back a bit last night when the rock demon attacked, history might have repeated itself, and he might have spared himself at least part of what was to come. But seeing Buffy, seeing the baby (just another monster, he reminded himself) in danger had been too much. He knew now that he could never let another bring them to harm.
He'd have to do this himself.
It took some doing to ensure the basement windows were all locked from the outside in the middle of the afternoon, but he'd always been a dab hand at nipping around in the daytime. Getting outside without alerting the sprats was a simple matter of wrapping himself in the fireproof blanket he kept for just such emergencies and climbing out the bedroom window. A bottle of 3-in-1 nicked from the garage, and he was set.
It had been decades since he'd used his predator's stealth and cunning to hunt human prey, (not human; that was the whole point, wasn't it?) but the old skills hadn't lain fallow all these years. Spike pulled the blanket more securely around his shoulders and squirted oil onto the rusty lock of the last window. He wriggled the catch til it shot home with barely a squeak. He paused, listening intently for any sign that Bill had heard, but the tinny thread of music coming from the basement told him Bill had his headphones on. The boy was starting to grow into an adult vampire's strength and speed, but only just starting; Bill wouldn't be able to match his old man for years yet, even if his old man had been a bit of a couch potato of late. Connie might be the one he'd have to watch for; she was a scrapper, just like her mum, and most likely to surprise him.
No. He couldn't think about that. Couldn't think about his pride the first time Connie'd put him on the ground in training. Couldn't think about riding Bill around on his shoulders, nor Alex snuggling close and demanding a story. Certainly not the sweet soft weight of them when first placed in his arms, nor the bliss of lying side by side with Buffy as she nursed. He swiped savagely at his eyes; sweat, not tears - oh, who was he kidding? He was a fucking sentimental pussy. You'd never catch the Slayer blubbing as she sent Angelus to hell.
He could feel the sunlight burning down on his shoulders even through the heavy wool. The sun had passed its zenith, and would be beating full against the front of the house, soon. Seductive, that warmth, but he'd resist its advances for now.
He paused in the scanty shade of the front porch before opening the door. Inside he could hear Alex lecturing Connie about the peculiarities of his plastic dinosaurs; Tyrannosaurus Rex, apparently, was a mild-mannered chap who would never kick Stegosaurus out of the dinosaur pool. His fingers tightened on the knob. Surely, surely they might be spared? They weren't like him. Weren't monsters. They were innocents, children, Buffy's children -
Who carried the demon taint in their veins as surely as Bill did, if less obviously. We're all monsters here, he thought dully, and opened the door.
"Daddy!" cried Alex, with a jubilant leap to his feet. "Wanna play dinosaurs?" Connie looked up at him more warily, her dark brows ready to dip into a scowl at the slightest provocation.
"Might in a bit, tadpole," Spike replied, bending down and swinging Alex into his arms. "Got a surprise for you, first. Down in the basement." He forced an ingratiating smile for Connie. "You too, Poodle. Make up for the miserable sod I've acted lately."
Connie wasn't so easily bought off. She shrugged and buried her nose in one of her insipid teeny magazines. "Maybe later. I'm busy."
"As you like. I'm just saying, it might have something to do with that concert you were hounding your mum about last week."
"Ohmigod!" Connie's squeal hit notes only vampires could hear. She sprang to her feet, bouncing up and down, her mane of chestnut curls frothing around her shoulders. "Dad! You got me a ticket to the Green Day reunion tour?"
Girl after his own heart, Connie. And that abused organ was breaking, just about now. He followed her into the kitchen, down the basement stairs. Alex's fingers brushed his cheek. "Why are you crying, Daddy?"
"Something in my eye, I expect." He set Alex down at the top of the basement stairs and gave him a swat on the rump, propelling him downwards, and locked the door to the kitchen behind him. He slid the key into the pocket of his jeans, and started down the stairs, fangs descending. He didn't need weapons for this.
"Dad?" Bill was lying on the weight bench, struggling with a set of barbells rather too heavy for him. He rolled out from under and sat up, looking from Spike to the others in confusion. "What's up? Were they bugging you, because Mom told me - "
"No, son." He sat down on Buffy's pommel horse, inexpressibly weary. Three pairs of eyes followed him, three faces, excited, curious, loving, worried... "I just needed to tell you all something. Your mum's told you, I went and got myself a soul. So's I could tell right from wrong, and do right by all of you from now on. It's just turned out that doing right's more complicated than I'd thought." He paused, gripping the handles of the pommel horse. "I love you more'n I can say, all of you. But sometimes, love's not enough. And it can't stand between you and the right thing."
"Dad," Bill was edging between Spike and the younger children now. Of course, Bill got it - being a monster himself, he knew when a monster was about to be unleashed. "I think maybe you should rest some - "
Spike was across the room before Bill could finish the sentence. Bill's eyes flared sulphur-yellow beneath ridged brows, and he flung up an arm to block Spike's rush. As the two of them traded a flurry of blows (stop holding back, you bloody coward; could've gutted the boy twice over by now!) Connie shoved Alex back into the corner and dove for the weapons rack, snatching up one of the rattan practice swords. Spike evaded Bill's awkward punch, grabbed his wrist and twisted, hard, wrenching the boy's arm up behind his back and jerking his head back to expose the carotid. Poor lad. For all he had a demon's temper, Bill was more a scholar at heart than a fighter. "Show some respect for your old dad, yeah?" he snarled.
"Dad, I don't want to hurt you!" Bill choked. "The soul's making you crazy!"
THWACK! Connie laid her sword across the backs of his knees and danced away. "Let him go!" She wasn't strong enough to do him major damage, but the blade caught the edge of the still-healing welts from last night's debacle and stung like hell. Bill took advantage of the distraction and staggered free, spinning around with bared fangs. Connie stood with sword at guard, her elfin face as ferocious as any vampire's mask, though her fingers on the hilt were trembling. "Leave them alone, or - "
She was magnificent, their girl. Or would be, someday. If she lived that long. But it was all the proof he needed, wasn't it, that she was blood of his blood for all she could walk in the sun? Outside, tires crunched on the driveway, and the engine-rumble died away as the Jeep pulled up. A door slammed. Connie shot a hopeful glance at the staircase.
Relief broke over Bill's face. "Mom's home!"
"Right, then," growled Spike. "I'll make this quick."
He lunged. Connie and Bill dove in opposite directions, and the basement door flew open with a crash. Buffy stood silhouetted in the light. In one hand she held a wicked-looking dagger that stank of spellcraft. "Spike! What the hell are you doing?"
Part of him was yammering with relief: Give it up, mate, you left it too late, she's back, plan's ruined! But that was the weak, sniveling, cowardly part. "Don't make this harder than it has to be, Slayer." A raw sob choked him for a moment. "You've been there. You know!"
Buffy's eyes were measuring lines and angles, sizing up resources. "Yes, I have. And I know how it destroys you. Listen to me, Spike. This isn't you."
"Don't see anyone else around." Vamp-fast, Spike leaped the railing and was half-way up the stairs, blocking the exit.
"You're having some kind of allergic reaction to the soul Melly gave you. It doesn't fit you right." She took a cautious step or two downwards, holding out the knife. "It's like - like what would happen if I had a demon dumped into me."
"You did have a demon dumped into you, pet, and no one's questioning your sanity. You can't bear it, can you, not being able to lord your soul over me? 'You can't understand, Spike!'" he mimicked. "Well, balls to that, Slayer. I understand everything now."
"Daddy?" Alex eeled away from Bill's wild grab and dashed up the stairs, tugging on the leg of Spike's jeans. "No hitting."
"Grownups talking, little man." Spike scooped him up a heartbeat before Bill could haul him back, to Buffy's sharply-drawn breath and Bill's half-strangled, "Dad, no!"
"Spike, please," Buffy said, urgent. She extended the knife, hilt-first. "This can fix everything. You have two souls inside you, and only one of them belongs there. You just have to - "
Quick as thought, he snatched the knife from her hand. "I know a soul-eater when I see one, Slayer." He cradled Alex in the crook of his right arm, raised the blade in his left hand. Those big, trusting eyes looking up at him, those round cheeks and rosy lips, ever ready to smile - his hand was shaking, the blade quivering in his grip. He froze. Shuddered. Set the point to his son's chest. "I love you, Alex. But Daddy's got to do the right thing."
The universe narrowed to a knife's point. Far, far away he saw Buffy poised for one last desperate leap, Slayer strength against vampire speed, heard her shouting, "Spike! You got a soul to protect them!"
He had done, hadn't he? Funny old world.
Alex scowled. "You promised, Daddy."
He had. It seemed a lifetime ago. In a way, it had been - it wasn't the man with the soul who'd made that promise, for all he'd been the one to speak the words. It was the man - the monster - who'd loved his children enough to go get it.
And something deep-buried within him roared to re-awakened, furious life. Rage and love and memory, body and spirit, human and demon, knit so close he couldn't tell where one left off and the other began. Rage and love alike surged through him, crashing through should's and shouldn'ts, dos and don'ts, rights and wrongs, and his poor battered heart rose up and sang with liberation. No more trembling, no more uncertainty, no more fear. Bugger the right thing. They're mine, and I love them.
Human heart and demon soul united, William Henry Summers-Pratt flipped the bone knife round in his grasp, and plunged the blade deep into his own breast.
*****
Melly's prediction that a stab to the heart wouldn't outright kill a demon whose entire circulatory system was basically one big secondary pump turned out to be correct, but she'd kind of glossed over the major organ trauma. But dealing with Spike bleeding and passing out was way easier than dealing with Spike mired in existential angst, and when her husband woke up the next morning ravenous, horny, and completely amoral, Buffy could have driven down to L.A. and kissed the shaman then and there. With tongue. And let Spike watch.
She settled for kissing him with tongue instead. It went way better this time.
*****
"What was it like having a soul?" Bill asked across the dinner table, some days later. He was stirring burba weed into his beef blood, forehead convulsed in thoughtful wrinkles. "I mean... before you went completely nuts."
Spike's forehead acquired the identical set of wrinkles, thirty years on. "Hard to explain." He took a healthy gulp from his own mug. "'S like trying to remember a dream, a bit. While you're chatting up the Sandman, all manner of rot makes perfect sense, an' when you wake up again... it doesn't." He contemplated the floating swirls of crushed burba. "Been chasing that missing piece for twenty years, and when I catch it, it doesn't fit. I bloody well hate Shel Silverstein."
"Maybe it wasn't missing." Connie spooned herself more mashed potatoes. Their daughter might not be a Slayer yet, Buffy reflected, but she certainly ate like one. Good thing for the grocery bill that Spike had finally filled that overdue order for Neq'antith scales. "Can I go over to Rhonda's after dinner?"
"Is your homework done?" Buffy asked.
Connie developed a sudden interest in her black-lacquered toes. "Not quite, but I have the whole weekend- "
"Good for you," interrupted Spike. "Just a tool of the conformist drones that - " Buffy elbowed him in the ribs, and his rant against the California educational system derailed into a cough. " - that'll get you into a decent college someday. Upstairs with you."
"But Daaaad... oh, fine!"
"Read to me, Daddy!" Alex demanded, hopping off his chair.
"Dunno as I'm up to that..." Spike made a show of deep thought, while Alex hopped from one foot to the other in suspense. He downed the last of his blood. "Go fetch us your storybook, then, little man."
Alex raced off upstairs, with Connie in far less enthusiastic pursuit - Bill, of course, had already finished his homework for the next month ahead, and was deep in some passionate internet debate. "Forgiving lot, our brood," Spike muttered. "Can't possibly get it from me."
"Well, my mom tried to burn me at the stake once. I got over it." Buffy followed Spike into the living room, and together they collapsed onto the couch. The dishes were going to get crusty, but crusty dishes? Not even a one on the Summers-Pratt Domestic Emergency Scale. Spike thumbed the remote on and power-surfed to some suitably brain-dead zombie flick, sans sound. Buffy slipped an arm around his waist, leaning into his shoulder with a contented sigh - having returned to both his workouts and his dinner with a vengeance, he was starting to look and feel deliciously solid again. Still a little on the broody side, though. She'd have thought that would go with the soul, but apparently the existential angst was pure Spike.
And God, how selfish could she be? Sorry your attempt to become a better man ended in disaster, William. But at least I've got my soulless studmuffin back!
No, that wasn't fair, either. She'd probably always harbor guilty alternatives in the back of her head - what if she'd gotten home fifteen minutes earlier, what if she'd taken Spike with her to see if Melly could do anything? But it had been Spike's choice in the end, as it had been in the beginning, and really... she couldn't fault what he'd chosen, or why. She reached up and ran her fingers through his short, scruffy curls, almost grown out now from their singeing. "Maybe it would have worked better with your real soul."
Spike winced. "Right, and winkling it back would leave you dead instead of the nippers. Sounds like one of my plans."
"Or maybe..." Buffy tucked her feet up under her, and shifted position to look him in the eye. "Maybe Connie's right." Spike gave a skeptical snort. "No, seriously. Look, I'm not going to claim it's easier like this. We don't think the same way. But you're not a human being with pieces missing. You're a whole vampire. Maybe the first whole vampire. Maybe we just have to figure out what that means." She laid a hand on her rounding belly. "And not just for you."
He was certainly giving the forehead-wrinkles a workout tonight. "That's as may be," Spike said at last. "But likely cold comfort to the chap whose throat I'm at." A little grin quirked the corners of his mouth - not as cocky as of old, but getting there. "Still. Fifteen years now since my last real kill, innit? If we're lucky, I'll be dead before I go off the rails again." He slung an arm around her shoulders. "I never meant you should pay for the mending of my folly, either - can't remember our first time now, but I'm figuring it went well if you stuck around for a second go."
"Hey." Buffy traced the muscled lines of his chest with her free hand, massaging the newly healed scar where the enchanted dagger had penetrated. Like the scar over his eyebrow, it would be a long time fading, if at all. Maybe they couldn't remember that one night, but their whole lives were the consequence of it. "Worth it. No matter how fantastic it was then, what we've got now is more important." She giggled. "Besides, maybe it was awful. Maybe you went off too soon and I was wearing embarrassing granny panties. Now we can make up a dozen first times that are way better."
His hungry little growl segued into a purr as he stroked the curve of her stomach. "Wouldn't mind doing a little collaborating along those lines later on."
"I found it, Daddy!" Alex bellowed from upstairs. Spike looked up, his face stricken, as his son's eager footsteps pounded for the stairs.
Back to square one, Buffy supposed. "So what are you going to do now?" she asked.
Alex rounded the newel post, book clutched to his chest. Spike's jaw firmed and his eyes warmed, flecks of June gold glittering in the January blue. "What else?" he said. "Keep my promises."
END
Connie was standing at the bedroom doorway, a defiant set to her shoulders. Bill was right behind her, looking gutted. Spike returned his gaze to the bedroom ceiling. He'd been lying flat on his back for hours now. Listening to the house come awake. Wondering if it wouldn't be easier, after all, to just get up, walk across the room, and open the blackout curtains. "That's between me and your Mum."
"She was crying last night. We heard her." Connie's eyes were as wintery a blue as ever his own had been. "You know what? It was better when you were gone. I wish you'd never come home."
She broke and ran, sandaled feet pattering down the hallway. Bill lingered a moment longer, the betrayal in his eyes all too easy to decipher. At last he said, "I don't think I need a soul after all," and left.
Watching them go, Spike was vaguely aware of a dull, spreading ache in his chest, beneath the ever-present acid burn of guilt: not his soul outraged, this time, but his heart. He'd just begun, in the last few months, to make real progress in repairing the damage he'd done by walking out on them two summers ago. Which was why the business with Alex had terrified him so; the thought of wrecking forever what he'd only just got back was intolerable. Getting a soul was the only way to ensure he'd never hurt his family again. Or so he'd thought.
He'd made a horrible mistake.
Nothing new there, of course. His existence, he sometimes thought, was just a series of horrible mistakes, one after the other, punctuated by occasional interludes used to plan his next horrible mistake in exacting detail. And this one he couldn't have foreseen. How could he have possibly known, when soulless, just how wrong he'd been about so many things?
He couldn't look Buffy in the eye when she marched up the stairs a few minutes later, regal as anyone could have managed dressed in pajamas with sock monkeys printed all over them. She waved aside his stuttered attempt at apology, chin high and mouth set in an imperious line that would have done the first Elizabeth proud. "You've said enough," she said. "It's time for me to talk."
Spike nodded; he didn't trust himself to anything else. Buffy settled herself cross-legged at the foot of the bed. "You don't really think you're the first person to bring up the fact that you're kind of evil, do you?" she said. "Were kind of evil. Now you're just an asshole. Shut up, I'm still talking." She tucked a stray wisp of honey-gold hair behind her ear. "I don't love you because you were evil. I love you because you tried so hard not to be. I love your bravery, and your devotion, and your smartass mouth, and your stupid exploded-poodle hair, and the way your eyes crinkle up when you laugh, and the way you sing Ramones songs in the shower, - and - " She broke off, fists clenched in her lap. "I know you did terrible things. I saw you do some of them, remember? I stopped you from doing some of them. And I know you didn't feel sorry about them the way someone with a soul would." She looked up. "But you didn't have a soul. And you did the best you could with what you did have. And maybe our relationship wasn't perfect and it wasn't normal, but it was ours, and it worked." Deep breath. "And I don't know if this is working anymore."
Those words would have killed him, once. Still hurt. "Buffy - "
She held up a hand. "Let me finish. I know this has been a big adjustment for you. I know it took Angel years, decades, a century - I don't have that much time. I'm forty years old, and I've been living on borrowed time since I was fifteen. I can give you time. I can. But I can't give you centuries. Or even decades. They need their father. I need my husband." She reached out and laid a hand on his chest, in a gesture that should have been balm. "I know he's still in there. But I need to know whether or not I'm going to get him back some day."
You've already got him, his heart wanted to say. Wanted to prostrate himself before her, beg forgiveness, spend the rest of his life making amends, hold her and love her and comfort her ever after. But his heart wasn't in sole command any longer. "He's in there, all right," Spike said bitterly. "I'm still a demon. Still want all the things I wanted before. Just... now I know how wrong they are. And there's nothing left, nothing I can hold on to." He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. "Things I thought were right and good are - for Christ's sake, you're the Slayer, and you're carrying soulless demonspawn in your belly, and we make our living chopping up demons and selling their bits on the next step above the black market. You look the other way while Bite Club mates up suckers with bloodsuckers downtown - "
"Yes, I've compromised! Kinda remember doing it! So have you!" Buffy drew her knees up to her chin, her moss-agate eyes eloquent with unshed tears - after last night, she wouldn't cry in front of him, at any rate. "Spike, is there any chance... any chance there's something wrong with your soul?"
Where the hell had that come from? Spike gave a humorless bark of laughter. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Isn't that one of the things you love about me? Long as you're the only one with the functioning moral compass, you get the last word." He bared his teeth in a mirthless grin. "No chance, Slayer. Part of the deal: I fixed it with Melly to give me the soul of a good man."
"Which one, Cotton Mather?" She frowned, seizing on the last sentence. "Wait. You don't have your own soul?"
"Course not. Gave my proper one up to bring you back, didn't I? Long gone." He shrugged away her worried look. "It struck me, likely there's millions of souls floating 'round the aether, the vamps they used to belong to long gone to dust. I had Melly snag me one of those."
"Oh." Buffy appeared to be contemplating this. "That's... kind of creepy, actually." She pulled a weak smile from somewhere. "Just the sort of thing soulless you would come up with." Her face went serious. "Spike, you really freaked me out last night. I almost wish I could fuck it out of you."
"Do you have any sodding idea what you're saying?" Spike sat forward with a growl, feeling the stretch and creak of bone as his face changed. "Any fucking clue how close to the bloody line I walked, every single day? The worst of my fuckups was nothing to what I could have done. What I would have done, sooner or later. That business with Alex - I wasn't pushed past any limits, Buffy. Wasn't provoked, no more than I've been a hundred times before. After twenty fucking interminable years I just got tired of holding it in." He let his demon features fall away. "If the Circle K clerk'd been the one to piss me off, I'd've killed the berk, and likely five of his mates for good measure, and gone my merry way. We were just lucky it was our son."
Her mouth drew even tighter. "Funny definition of luck you have these days."
Spike leaned across the counterpane and caught her hands, earnest now. "For twenty years you've been telling me I can't understand, 'cause I haven't a soul. Well, I understand now. I understand why you sent Angel to hell to save the world. I understand why you risked everything to save that rat bastard Wells. You did it because it was the right thing to do. I understand that, for the first time in a hundred and forty years. Can you really ask me to give that up?"
She bowed her head, silent. "No. No, I can't." With a quick shake of her head, Buffy uncurled, hopped off the bed and headed for the wardrobe. She dressed with quick efficiency, tossing aside two pairs of jeans that didn't fit any longer with a wrinkle of her nose. Minimal makeup, hair in a twist. "Spike, will you be OK here by yourself for awhile? I've got lessons today." She pulled her skating bag from the closet and slung it over her shoulder.
"Kids off to school already?" he asked.
"Spike, it's Saturday." She sighed, shook her head. "I told Bill to keep Connie and Alex out of your way until you're... feeling better. I'll be back as soon as I can."
He waited until he heard the Jeep's engine start, and pull out of the driveway. He listened, picking out heartbeats: downstairs, Connie and Alex were squabbling over a video game, and down in the basement, Bill was having a go at the weights. Something he ought to get back to; he'd let himself go long enough, and there was work to do.
He rolled out of bed, ran a quick shower, forgoing his morning wank - hadn't been much call for one lately, anyway. Dressed, shaved, slicked his hair back. He wiped fog from the mirror, staring at his absent reflection. He was an old hand at making himself presentable without. He gave the blackout curtains a wistful look as he left the bathroom. But no. That was the coward's way out. Where the hell had he put his boots? He bent down to look under the bed, rummaging, and yanked his hand back with a curse as his fingers impacted something hard and sharp.
Buffy's ice skates.
Fuck.
He had less time than he'd thought. He wasn't sure he could nerve himself for what needed to be done. But he'd got himself a soul, and he understood now what it was to do the right thing. It was high time he started doing it.
****
Buffy glanced down at the magnetic business card she'd fished out of the half-dozen collecting dust on the refrigerator (Melissa Delacouer, Consulting Shaman, Eighth Level Initiate of the Kun Sun Dai - By Appointment Only) and up at the faded gilt lettering on the rippled glass window of the office door in front of her. It was a two-hour drive from Sunnydale to L.A., and she'd made it in an hour and a half. Melly had been on Bloody Vengeance's corporate Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice/Gurnenthar's Ascension/Kwanza/Eid list since the first year they'd started the business, but Buffy'd only met her once or twice before. She was usually more than willing to let Spike deal with the client end of things, only stepping in when the application of some Slayer muscle seemed in order.
The door opened before she could knock. "Slayer," Melly Delacour said, gazing down at Buffy from the advantage of eight inches. "Didn't expect to see you here. I thought sure I'd be getting another visit from Spike some time soon, but this is a surprise. Come on in and tell me all your troubles, sugar."
Buffy glanced around as she followed Melly in: crumbling tomes, check; spooky bottles, check; bones of dubious origin, check; all the standard trappings of a mage's office. Buffy took a seat in the offered chair. "Spike tells me you stuck him with somebody else's soul."
Melly raised an eyebrow. "Honey, he begged me to stick him with someone else's soul. Most interesting proposition I've gotten in a long, long, time, and your hubby ain't the only one who's older than he looks. Not many vampires get their souls back to begin with, and I never heard tell of a vampire that wanted one back before."
"Spike's always liked doing things the hard way." No sense in beating around the bush, here. "Something's wrong with him."
A second eyebrow joined the first. "Guilt, remorse, crippling self-loathing? Goes with the territory, honey."
Buffy dismissed both eyebrows with an impatient head-shake. "My first boyfriend pretty much wrote the book on crippling self-loathing. Believe me, got the memo. This is different. It's like he's gotten all..." She waved her hands helplessly. "Judgy and weird. That never happened to Willow, or Angel, or Wesley, when they got their souls back."
"Mmmm, yeah." Melly pursed her lips. "Your ordinary vampire, it's a demon spirit poured into a human body, held together by magic as deep and dark and bloody as it gets. You put a human soul back in the mix, it'll cleave to the body it sprang from, better'n any demon spirit could. That's why it can override the demon. Your Spike, though... the Mohra blood knit human body 'n demon soul together when it brought him to life. He's all of a piece now. Add a human soul to that mix, it's like cramming too many teeth into a jaw - one of 'em's gonna ache something fierce. Even the soul he was born with might not fit him any longer. He's a custom job, honey."
"I don't suppose you mentioned any of this to Spike?"
The shaman rolled her eyes. "I gave it a try. But you know better'n I do - how easy is it to change his mind when he's really set on something?"
"Point," Buffy admitted with a sigh. "I guess the real question is, will he get better? Can we, like, fit him with spiritual braces? Or is he going to stay like this?" The possibility that he might get worse wasn't one she really wanted to think about.
Melly chuckled, rocking back in her leather chair. "Who knows? No one's ever tried anything like this before, sugar. We'll just have to wait and see."
"Not my strong point." She couldn't believe she was asking this. "If he doesn't get better, is there any way to reverse it?"
The shaman's eyes were knowing. "I expected that question to come up. Expected it would be Spike askin' it, though." She rose to her feet and strolled over to the shelves of bottles, running her fingers across the dusty labels. "There's never a spell that can't be broken, never a curse that can't be lifted. I put a little something aside for him, just in case." Moving several bottles, she produced a slim dagger of bone, yellow with age and about a foot long. The hilt was bound in ancient, sweat-stained strips of leather, braided in an intricate pattern, and the narrow blade was serrated like a shark's tooth. The grooves were stained an ugly reddish-brown. She turned to face Buffy, blade held lightly in one hand. "This is a soul-eater. You use it like you'd expect - stab to the heart, soul gets sucked into the blade. The question is, are you willing to pay the price?"
"That depends," Buffy replied, "on the bill. I won't give you anything that isn't mine to give, and that includes first, second, third and fourth-born children, best friends, and neighborhood pets. Also, questions: If Spike's got two souls in him now, how do I know this will suck up the right one? What happens to the soul that gets sucked? And heart-stabbiness? In my experience, generally fatal."
Melly threw back her head and laughed. "I like you, Slayer. You're a hard sell." She twirled the dagger, caught it. "This won't kill him. The soul gets eaten - this isn't a nice business, honey. And if you or anyone else stabs him, it could take either one. Or both. For the soul-eater to take the soul I gave him, and only that soul, Spike'll have to do it himself."
Buffy bit her lip. Spike hadn't sounded any too willing to give up his hard-won soul this morning... and what if he was right? Was the deep unease she felt no more than discomfort with the idea that he could now call her on issues where she'd had the last word for years? What if she was over-reacting, and all he needed was more time for the soul to settle in? Angel had certainly needed more time, and by all accounts Wesley wasn't doing so well on that front, either. "What do you want for it?"
"Spike paid me in memories," said Melly. She grinned. "Spicy stuff, your first night together. I wouldn't mind having me a matched set."
****
The basement, Spike decided. There was only one exit, and they'd had blackout shutters installed over the windows back when Willow and Tara had been renting the place. It had taken him far too long to come to that decision: precious hours spent debating trifles with himself, when Buffy might return at any moment. Part of him, he knew, was hoping for just that. Right now he was his own worst enemy.
It was tempting to assign all the weak and selfish impulses within him to the influence of his demon aspect, but the truth was, the flaw was bred as deep in the man as the monster. In one it might take the form of a womanish excess of feeling, and in the other a savage possessiveness, but both emotions worked to hinder him in what he must do. If he'd only held back a bit last night when the rock demon attacked, history might have repeated itself, and he might have spared himself at least part of what was to come. But seeing Buffy, seeing the baby (just another monster, he reminded himself) in danger had been too much. He knew now that he could never let another bring them to harm.
He'd have to do this himself.
It took some doing to ensure the basement windows were all locked from the outside in the middle of the afternoon, but he'd always been a dab hand at nipping around in the daytime. Getting outside without alerting the sprats was a simple matter of wrapping himself in the fireproof blanket he kept for just such emergencies and climbing out the bedroom window. A bottle of 3-in-1 nicked from the garage, and he was set.
It had been decades since he'd used his predator's stealth and cunning to hunt human prey, (not human; that was the whole point, wasn't it?) but the old skills hadn't lain fallow all these years. Spike pulled the blanket more securely around his shoulders and squirted oil onto the rusty lock of the last window. He wriggled the catch til it shot home with barely a squeak. He paused, listening intently for any sign that Bill had heard, but the tinny thread of music coming from the basement told him Bill had his headphones on. The boy was starting to grow into an adult vampire's strength and speed, but only just starting; Bill wouldn't be able to match his old man for years yet, even if his old man had been a bit of a couch potato of late. Connie might be the one he'd have to watch for; she was a scrapper, just like her mum, and most likely to surprise him.
No. He couldn't think about that. Couldn't think about his pride the first time Connie'd put him on the ground in training. Couldn't think about riding Bill around on his shoulders, nor Alex snuggling close and demanding a story. Certainly not the sweet soft weight of them when first placed in his arms, nor the bliss of lying side by side with Buffy as she nursed. He swiped savagely at his eyes; sweat, not tears - oh, who was he kidding? He was a fucking sentimental pussy. You'd never catch the Slayer blubbing as she sent Angelus to hell.
He could feel the sunlight burning down on his shoulders even through the heavy wool. The sun had passed its zenith, and would be beating full against the front of the house, soon. Seductive, that warmth, but he'd resist its advances for now.
He paused in the scanty shade of the front porch before opening the door. Inside he could hear Alex lecturing Connie about the peculiarities of his plastic dinosaurs; Tyrannosaurus Rex, apparently, was a mild-mannered chap who would never kick Stegosaurus out of the dinosaur pool. His fingers tightened on the knob. Surely, surely they might be spared? They weren't like him. Weren't monsters. They were innocents, children, Buffy's children -
Who carried the demon taint in their veins as surely as Bill did, if less obviously. We're all monsters here, he thought dully, and opened the door.
"Daddy!" cried Alex, with a jubilant leap to his feet. "Wanna play dinosaurs?" Connie looked up at him more warily, her dark brows ready to dip into a scowl at the slightest provocation.
"Might in a bit, tadpole," Spike replied, bending down and swinging Alex into his arms. "Got a surprise for you, first. Down in the basement." He forced an ingratiating smile for Connie. "You too, Poodle. Make up for the miserable sod I've acted lately."
Connie wasn't so easily bought off. She shrugged and buried her nose in one of her insipid teeny magazines. "Maybe later. I'm busy."
"As you like. I'm just saying, it might have something to do with that concert you were hounding your mum about last week."
"Ohmigod!" Connie's squeal hit notes only vampires could hear. She sprang to her feet, bouncing up and down, her mane of chestnut curls frothing around her shoulders. "Dad! You got me a ticket to the Green Day reunion tour?"
Girl after his own heart, Connie. And that abused organ was breaking, just about now. He followed her into the kitchen, down the basement stairs. Alex's fingers brushed his cheek. "Why are you crying, Daddy?"
"Something in my eye, I expect." He set Alex down at the top of the basement stairs and gave him a swat on the rump, propelling him downwards, and locked the door to the kitchen behind him. He slid the key into the pocket of his jeans, and started down the stairs, fangs descending. He didn't need weapons for this.
"Dad?" Bill was lying on the weight bench, struggling with a set of barbells rather too heavy for him. He rolled out from under and sat up, looking from Spike to the others in confusion. "What's up? Were they bugging you, because Mom told me - "
"No, son." He sat down on Buffy's pommel horse, inexpressibly weary. Three pairs of eyes followed him, three faces, excited, curious, loving, worried... "I just needed to tell you all something. Your mum's told you, I went and got myself a soul. So's I could tell right from wrong, and do right by all of you from now on. It's just turned out that doing right's more complicated than I'd thought." He paused, gripping the handles of the pommel horse. "I love you more'n I can say, all of you. But sometimes, love's not enough. And it can't stand between you and the right thing."
"Dad," Bill was edging between Spike and the younger children now. Of course, Bill got it - being a monster himself, he knew when a monster was about to be unleashed. "I think maybe you should rest some - "
Spike was across the room before Bill could finish the sentence. Bill's eyes flared sulphur-yellow beneath ridged brows, and he flung up an arm to block Spike's rush. As the two of them traded a flurry of blows (stop holding back, you bloody coward; could've gutted the boy twice over by now!) Connie shoved Alex back into the corner and dove for the weapons rack, snatching up one of the rattan practice swords. Spike evaded Bill's awkward punch, grabbed his wrist and twisted, hard, wrenching the boy's arm up behind his back and jerking his head back to expose the carotid. Poor lad. For all he had a demon's temper, Bill was more a scholar at heart than a fighter. "Show some respect for your old dad, yeah?" he snarled.
"Dad, I don't want to hurt you!" Bill choked. "The soul's making you crazy!"
THWACK! Connie laid her sword across the backs of his knees and danced away. "Let him go!" She wasn't strong enough to do him major damage, but the blade caught the edge of the still-healing welts from last night's debacle and stung like hell. Bill took advantage of the distraction and staggered free, spinning around with bared fangs. Connie stood with sword at guard, her elfin face as ferocious as any vampire's mask, though her fingers on the hilt were trembling. "Leave them alone, or - "
She was magnificent, their girl. Or would be, someday. If she lived that long. But it was all the proof he needed, wasn't it, that she was blood of his blood for all she could walk in the sun? Outside, tires crunched on the driveway, and the engine-rumble died away as the Jeep pulled up. A door slammed. Connie shot a hopeful glance at the staircase.
Relief broke over Bill's face. "Mom's home!"
"Right, then," growled Spike. "I'll make this quick."
He lunged. Connie and Bill dove in opposite directions, and the basement door flew open with a crash. Buffy stood silhouetted in the light. In one hand she held a wicked-looking dagger that stank of spellcraft. "Spike! What the hell are you doing?"
Part of him was yammering with relief: Give it up, mate, you left it too late, she's back, plan's ruined! But that was the weak, sniveling, cowardly part. "Don't make this harder than it has to be, Slayer." A raw sob choked him for a moment. "You've been there. You know!"
Buffy's eyes were measuring lines and angles, sizing up resources. "Yes, I have. And I know how it destroys you. Listen to me, Spike. This isn't you."
"Don't see anyone else around." Vamp-fast, Spike leaped the railing and was half-way up the stairs, blocking the exit.
"You're having some kind of allergic reaction to the soul Melly gave you. It doesn't fit you right." She took a cautious step or two downwards, holding out the knife. "It's like - like what would happen if I had a demon dumped into me."
"You did have a demon dumped into you, pet, and no one's questioning your sanity. You can't bear it, can you, not being able to lord your soul over me? 'You can't understand, Spike!'" he mimicked. "Well, balls to that, Slayer. I understand everything now."
"Daddy?" Alex eeled away from Bill's wild grab and dashed up the stairs, tugging on the leg of Spike's jeans. "No hitting."
"Grownups talking, little man." Spike scooped him up a heartbeat before Bill could haul him back, to Buffy's sharply-drawn breath and Bill's half-strangled, "Dad, no!"
"Spike, please," Buffy said, urgent. She extended the knife, hilt-first. "This can fix everything. You have two souls inside you, and only one of them belongs there. You just have to - "
Quick as thought, he snatched the knife from her hand. "I know a soul-eater when I see one, Slayer." He cradled Alex in the crook of his right arm, raised the blade in his left hand. Those big, trusting eyes looking up at him, those round cheeks and rosy lips, ever ready to smile - his hand was shaking, the blade quivering in his grip. He froze. Shuddered. Set the point to his son's chest. "I love you, Alex. But Daddy's got to do the right thing."
The universe narrowed to a knife's point. Far, far away he saw Buffy poised for one last desperate leap, Slayer strength against vampire speed, heard her shouting, "Spike! You got a soul to protect them!"
He had done, hadn't he? Funny old world.
Alex scowled. "You promised, Daddy."
He had. It seemed a lifetime ago. In a way, it had been - it wasn't the man with the soul who'd made that promise, for all he'd been the one to speak the words. It was the man - the monster - who'd loved his children enough to go get it.
And something deep-buried within him roared to re-awakened, furious life. Rage and love and memory, body and spirit, human and demon, knit so close he couldn't tell where one left off and the other began. Rage and love alike surged through him, crashing through should's and shouldn'ts, dos and don'ts, rights and wrongs, and his poor battered heart rose up and sang with liberation. No more trembling, no more uncertainty, no more fear. Bugger the right thing. They're mine, and I love them.
Human heart and demon soul united, William Henry Summers-Pratt flipped the bone knife round in his grasp, and plunged the blade deep into his own breast.
*****
Melly's prediction that a stab to the heart wouldn't outright kill a demon whose entire circulatory system was basically one big secondary pump turned out to be correct, but she'd kind of glossed over the major organ trauma. But dealing with Spike bleeding and passing out was way easier than dealing with Spike mired in existential angst, and when her husband woke up the next morning ravenous, horny, and completely amoral, Buffy could have driven down to L.A. and kissed the shaman then and there. With tongue. And let Spike watch.
She settled for kissing him with tongue instead. It went way better this time.
*****
"What was it like having a soul?" Bill asked across the dinner table, some days later. He was stirring burba weed into his beef blood, forehead convulsed in thoughtful wrinkles. "I mean... before you went completely nuts."
Spike's forehead acquired the identical set of wrinkles, thirty years on. "Hard to explain." He took a healthy gulp from his own mug. "'S like trying to remember a dream, a bit. While you're chatting up the Sandman, all manner of rot makes perfect sense, an' when you wake up again... it doesn't." He contemplated the floating swirls of crushed burba. "Been chasing that missing piece for twenty years, and when I catch it, it doesn't fit. I bloody well hate Shel Silverstein."
"Maybe it wasn't missing." Connie spooned herself more mashed potatoes. Their daughter might not be a Slayer yet, Buffy reflected, but she certainly ate like one. Good thing for the grocery bill that Spike had finally filled that overdue order for Neq'antith scales. "Can I go over to Rhonda's after dinner?"
"Is your homework done?" Buffy asked.
Connie developed a sudden interest in her black-lacquered toes. "Not quite, but I have the whole weekend- "
"Good for you," interrupted Spike. "Just a tool of the conformist drones that - " Buffy elbowed him in the ribs, and his rant against the California educational system derailed into a cough. " - that'll get you into a decent college someday. Upstairs with you."
"But Daaaad... oh, fine!"
"Read to me, Daddy!" Alex demanded, hopping off his chair.
"Dunno as I'm up to that..." Spike made a show of deep thought, while Alex hopped from one foot to the other in suspense. He downed the last of his blood. "Go fetch us your storybook, then, little man."
Alex raced off upstairs, with Connie in far less enthusiastic pursuit - Bill, of course, had already finished his homework for the next month ahead, and was deep in some passionate internet debate. "Forgiving lot, our brood," Spike muttered. "Can't possibly get it from me."
"Well, my mom tried to burn me at the stake once. I got over it." Buffy followed Spike into the living room, and together they collapsed onto the couch. The dishes were going to get crusty, but crusty dishes? Not even a one on the Summers-Pratt Domestic Emergency Scale. Spike thumbed the remote on and power-surfed to some suitably brain-dead zombie flick, sans sound. Buffy slipped an arm around his waist, leaning into his shoulder with a contented sigh - having returned to both his workouts and his dinner with a vengeance, he was starting to look and feel deliciously solid again. Still a little on the broody side, though. She'd have thought that would go with the soul, but apparently the existential angst was pure Spike.
And God, how selfish could she be? Sorry your attempt to become a better man ended in disaster, William. But at least I've got my soulless studmuffin back!
No, that wasn't fair, either. She'd probably always harbor guilty alternatives in the back of her head - what if she'd gotten home fifteen minutes earlier, what if she'd taken Spike with her to see if Melly could do anything? But it had been Spike's choice in the end, as it had been in the beginning, and really... she couldn't fault what he'd chosen, or why. She reached up and ran her fingers through his short, scruffy curls, almost grown out now from their singeing. "Maybe it would have worked better with your real soul."
Spike winced. "Right, and winkling it back would leave you dead instead of the nippers. Sounds like one of my plans."
"Or maybe..." Buffy tucked her feet up under her, and shifted position to look him in the eye. "Maybe Connie's right." Spike gave a skeptical snort. "No, seriously. Look, I'm not going to claim it's easier like this. We don't think the same way. But you're not a human being with pieces missing. You're a whole vampire. Maybe the first whole vampire. Maybe we just have to figure out what that means." She laid a hand on her rounding belly. "And not just for you."
He was certainly giving the forehead-wrinkles a workout tonight. "That's as may be," Spike said at last. "But likely cold comfort to the chap whose throat I'm at." A little grin quirked the corners of his mouth - not as cocky as of old, but getting there. "Still. Fifteen years now since my last real kill, innit? If we're lucky, I'll be dead before I go off the rails again." He slung an arm around her shoulders. "I never meant you should pay for the mending of my folly, either - can't remember our first time now, but I'm figuring it went well if you stuck around for a second go."
"Hey." Buffy traced the muscled lines of his chest with her free hand, massaging the newly healed scar where the enchanted dagger had penetrated. Like the scar over his eyebrow, it would be a long time fading, if at all. Maybe they couldn't remember that one night, but their whole lives were the consequence of it. "Worth it. No matter how fantastic it was then, what we've got now is more important." She giggled. "Besides, maybe it was awful. Maybe you went off too soon and I was wearing embarrassing granny panties. Now we can make up a dozen first times that are way better."
His hungry little growl segued into a purr as he stroked the curve of her stomach. "Wouldn't mind doing a little collaborating along those lines later on."
"I found it, Daddy!" Alex bellowed from upstairs. Spike looked up, his face stricken, as his son's eager footsteps pounded for the stairs.
Back to square one, Buffy supposed. "So what are you going to do now?" she asked.
Alex rounded the newel post, book clutched to his chest. Spike's jaw firmed and his eyes warmed, flecks of June gold glittering in the January blue. "What else?" he said. "Keep my promises."
END